


Viridian

by argle_fraster



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: M/M, The Author Regrets Nothing, i just accidentally almost 3k, tv show only
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 21:11:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/803313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argle_fraster/pseuds/argle_fraster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jojen knows the future like he knows his own memories of the past, and yet he finds himself puzzled and fascinated by the enigma that is Brandon Stark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Viridian

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize for this (lies). I know only the TV show, because I am deeply stupid and cannot understand the books, therefore TV canon only. I'm largely operating under the assumption that these kids are like 14, so I guess age them up in your mind if you are uncomfortable with fumbling young kisses.
> 
> Note that there are some spoilers for things I have read online will happen, whether those be book-true, movie-true, or just things people said were true and I believed.

Things don't happen that Jojen has not already seen.

He has killed a man with his bare hands, split a skull with a sword; he has seen fire and brimstone raining down on villages, animals with razor-sharp teeth tearing flesh, and the damned screaming as the old and new gods claim them both ungentle and unforgiving. He knew the sharp, acid taste of copper in the back of his mouth before he knew what blood even was. His mind is full of mish-mashed shapes, things that don't belong, and a jarring, disharmonious color of war and vengeance and death.

Jojen knows his future, he's already walked it. He has seen what is waiting down the road for them all, and how to get them there - the path he is treading has been laid out before him, tread with the dirty, bloody footsteps of those who have already passed. And there is no divergent path between the trees that could take them somewhere else. There is only the future, the unchanging and the resolute.

It took him a long time to decide that he accepted his fate. Fighting the dreams only makes it worse, and even if Bran had the use of his legs, he still could not run from that which the gods have bestowed upon him. Jojen knows all of this; he has always known all of this. Things don't happen that were not meant to.

And yet, after finding Bran, the future has turned to blackness. In his dreams, Jojen sees Bran - they speak, they walk, and they follow Bran's raven through the twists and turns of visions Bran is meant to see. Through it all, Jojen sees the others. He sees the war, he sees the carnage, he sees the bodies festering on the battlefield that is their land; he sees the cold winter wind blowing in from the North, where blood congeals crimson in the snow.

He doesn't see Bran - not anymore. Not in his dreams, anyway, and those were the one thing he had come to know as reality. Bran exists wholly outside his vision now, only a real and tangible thing next to him, and Jojen cannot come to terms with it.

Instead, he has to begin watching Bran, cataloguing the things he no longer sees when he is asleep, because he cannot fall back on his mind's eye to tell him what to do.

\--

"Your father fought for mine," Bran says, when they have made camp in the forest and Osha is cutting spikes into tree branches as if a wall of spears could save them from what hunts them.

"I know," Jojen replies.

Bran's eyes are sharp when they rove over Jojen's form, searching for answers; the boy sees everything, now, from a shorter vantage point, and it's sometimes as if he is still desperately clinging to that stone ledge, trying to find a way to keep his chin up higher.

"Have you seen them?" he asks. "In your dreams, together?"

"Yes," Jojen tells him. There's no point in lying.

"Will I ever see them, too? Can you teach me to see them?"

The boy wants to see his father - his desire for it is so great that Jojen can almost touch it, can almost reach out and grab it by the throat, and he knows the dangers that the dreams can bring. Living in the past to be with ones already gone can be the most dangerous trap their kind faces; it is a cage, a gilded, nostalgic one, but a cage nonetheless, and he is afraid to risk letting Bran go down that road.

But something tugs in his chest, at his abdomen, and it tastes an awful lot like guilt.

"You can't control it like that," Jojen tries.

"If you see them, though," Bran starts, pushing himself up on his elbows on the mound of furs that cover him like a wolf's pelt, like Summer trotting obediently next to the makeshift carriage, "and if you do, you can bring me in."

Jojen shakes his head. "It's dangerous."

"So is life," Bran says, eyes hardening. There are moments like this when Jojen sees flashes of the king Bran could have been, of the man he will become; in these moments, there is no arguing with a boy raised by wolves, born to rule the biting winter chill.

"It's still not something that I can control," Jojen repeats.

Bran settles back in the furs, lacing his fingers over his belly. "But you will try."

\--

Osha does not like him, and makes no secret about it. She watches him always, eyes heavy with distrust. Osha is a woman born of a raven's wing, who has flown far beyond her keep and is now traveling back towards it, and she is a strange thing that Jojen, despite the visions, cannot wholly predict. Things beyond the Wall have a habit of jumping the dreams and ignoring the path, and though Jojen has never been able to emulate it, he is aware that some things - some evil, some good, and some walking the balance between - have the ability to do so.

It is nicer when she goes to scout for food, when Meera is on watch and sinks into sleep because she knows he craves the solitude and silence.

"Does your sister always come with you?" Bran asks, when Meera's breathing is deep and regular, her chin dipping down to the collar of her shirt.

Jojen doesn't need the visions to know that Bran is thinking of his own sisters. He wonders how much he should tell the other boy - that Sansa is a bird whose wings have been clipped for show and dipped with gold just to humiliate her, that Arya has created a pack of her own that inspires the fierce loyalty of her house symbol.

He says nothing, because he has not finished trying to puzzle out the mystery that is Bran Stark.

"Did you know, I thought that my family would be together forever," Bran continues, and his gaze is somewhere far beyond Meera's sleeping form. "How wrong I was. I should have been able to see what was going to happen."

"Despair over past events won't change anything," Jojen says.

Bran's expression hardens, mouth thinning. "And yet we feel it anyway, don't we?"

Jojen has lost count of what feelings are his, and which have been inherited and assumed; perhaps, he simply forgot that there was ever a distinction. There is a rush of something hot and biting, in his blood, as if his own mind yearns to regain control of the memories that have been unceremoniously pushed into his consciousness throughout the years.

He sits down, looping his arms around his knees.

"What do you think, m'lord?"

"Think that if you call me that, I'll let Hodor throw you into the stream," Bran replies.

Jojen laughs. "I didn't see it, so it can't happen."

"Careful," Bran says, and there's something in his voice - an edge. A warning. Bran Stark is a being that will fight when pushed into a corner, a wolf that will snarl when backed up against the ledge. "You don't know that it isn't possible that something could come to pass you haven't dreamt."

\--

The worst thing is, Bran is right.

Meera watches them both with a careful, ever-present gaze, and Jojen knows where their path lies; her and Bran, tangled up together in the future, the dreams and visions overlapping and intertwining like two threads woven into a colorful canvas. Jojen has seen their wedding night, their children - he's seen where they will both be in the days ahead.

Yet here he is, settling in by Bran's sleeping pelts once more, watching the rise and fall of the other boy's chest. His hands are reaching out for the fur of the padding before he can stop himself. He knows this road. He already knows where it empties, where it ends.

He doesn't understand why his fingers move of their own accord - why his palm settles against the side of Bran's face when the boy thrashes, caught in the thrall of a vision he doesn't want. Waking to the outside world is sometimes painful, sometimes gut-wrenching, and Jojen tries to draw out the worst of it on himself. He closes his eyes and stretches out with his feelings, and when he raises his eyelids again, Bran is gazing up at him in the darkness.

This is a boy born to be a lord, destined to be a prince, whose brother is a king hoisting bannermen and waging a war across Westeros.

"You saw them dying," Jojen says, because he knows; it's in the back of his mind, fresh and raw and aching, and he knows it must be more for Bran, who just saw his brother and mother fall.

"Will it come?" Bran asks - his voice catches and breaks. "Will it pass?"

There is nothing that Jojen can say that will help. Either he lies, and Bran knows, or he speaks the truth, and Bran is devastated. He falters, because he doesn't know how to map this strange land without visions, this desert in his third eye that is unclouded by the green dreams, and Bran reaches out to grasp Jojen's hand with an intensity so strong it sends pangs up Jojen's wrist.

"Tell me," Bran demands, and he sounds like a prince - like a king.

"Yes," Jojen whispers.

Bran's fingers tighten, until Jojen can no longer feel his own. "Tell me how to change it. I must fix this. I can't let this happen."

"You can't."

There is no broken sob, no wounded keen. Bran stares at him with eyes that have already seen too much, jaw so angrily set that Jojen wonders if his teeth are screaming against one another. Jojen almost wishes the anguished denial would come, if only to alleviate the pressure, but Bran gives him none of that, because Bran is no longer that young boy.

"What do I do," Bran says, more demand than question. His voice is low and coarse, a tone Jojen has never heard before.

"We keep moving," Jojen tells him.

Bran growls, like Summer, and says, " _No._ Tell me what I do in the future. What is my path? I know you've seen it."

"I can't tell you," Jojen whispers.

"Because you won't?" Bran counters, angry.

"Because I _can't_ ," Jojen says, and rips his hand away as if lightning struck his palm. He cannot do this - he's tangling up the visions. He knows what will happen, and still, he's allowing himself to linger here. They can't escape their destiny.

Jojen knows this. Jojen has always known this.

And he's still going to try.

\--

Bran is quiet for days. Osha is angry at Jojen, calls him names - she threatens to stick him with one of her homemade spears until Meera gets annoyed enough to challenge her, and then she, too, falls into a sulky silence punctuated with furious glares that Jojen wishes he could escape from. Rickon, picking up on the tension, is anxious and fretting and full of energy he can't seem to find release for.

They spend more time than they should allowing him to run with the wolves, in the trees, with Hodor to lumber after him as a guard and Osha to silently, eerily follow. They watch the sun dip below the horizon after Meera skinned and cooked a wild rabbit she caught, and Jojen tries to forget all the things he's been running away from.

It's hard to run when one is tethered to the very root of the problem, and haunted at night by all the rest.

"Jojen," Bran says, quiet, even though the others are far enough away that they won't hear. His eyes are locked on the horizon line and the burst of colors painting the sky.

Jojen shifts until he is next to the cart of pelts, a pauper's carriage for a winter prince.

"These dreams," the other boy continues, slowly, mouth rounding out each syllable, "they are things that will happen, and we cannot change them."

"They are the future," Jojen says. "And the past. And the present."

Bran is still for a moment. "My brother and mother - that was the future. I know it hasn't happened yet."

"But it will," Jojen says.

"Have you ever seen something in the future that you wished you could change?" Bran asks.

Too many to count, and some terrible in their ferocity and grotesqueness, and yet, through all the death and destruction and hell fire, all Jojen can think about is the images he's seen of Bran wrapped around Meera's form, of the life they carve together. He leans in over the pelts and puts his head on them, in Bran's lap, raking his fingers through the matted fur and clawing it into an uneven ball in his fist.

"Yes," he whispers, into the pelts, and wonders if Bran can even hear.

"Jojen," Bran repeats. "Why won't you tell me my future?"

Jojen sucks in air that tastes of regret, of the sweat from their skin and the winter fur of the wolves. He is afraid that his voice will give out when he replies. "Because I don't want it to be true."

There are several long seconds of nothing, of everything, and then Bran's fingers thread through the tangles of Jojen's hair that have settled on the pelts. His nails scratch a bit at Jojen's scalp, his thumb dragging across the sweep of Jojen's cheek.

It is all Jojen can do to gulp in air, to try and still his hammering heart. He would die for this boy, this prince, and somewhere, deep down, he thinks this is how his father might have felt as well, lost in the sway of Winterfell and its pups.

\--

He still cannot green dream of Bran, unless it is Bran's dreams and they are together; then, the visions are focused outside, on something else, beyond the Wall. But Jojen still sees the rest of the world - he sees fire-breathing dragons over achingly blue waters, of swords clattering against rock and the surf beating men against the shore.

He comes back from one that leaves him shaking and jittery, the likes of which he hasn't felt in awhile, and wakes to Bran hovering over him. There is a pelt draped across Jojen's shoulders that feels heavy and comforting, musky and slightly damp.

"Breathe," Bran commands. He gives Jojen a minute to collect himself before asking, "What was it?"

It was a vision of the future, veiled and half-hidden, but Jojen had known the emotions it brought; he is going to lose everything. He will lose Bran, and there is nothing he can do to stop it. He never should have allowed himself to get in so deep. Of all the things he should have seen, his own masochistic downfall should have been the first.

"Jojen," Bran says.

"Don't leave," Jojen chokes - it's still very real, chilling him to the bone.

"My future?"

The future is littered with the burning corpses of the war. This, by comparison, should be nothing. But Jojen is far beyond reason. "I wish it weren't so."

"Is my future so terrible?" Bran asks, and he sounds more curious than upset.

"You... are well," Jojen tells him. "It's only terrible for me."

There is a moment of silence before Bran says, "Do you remember when I told you that something could happen that you have not seen?"

"Yes."

Bran's hands tug him upwards, greedily grasping at whatever bits of Jojen's tunic they can find. And then Bran's mouth is on his, messy and off-kilter, chapped lips from the winter wind that should be terribly cold and aren't. Jojen thinks wildly that he is so young, too young, but boys his age have gone to war and fought and killed, and no one thought they were too young to die. He just kisses back, powerless, unable to stop it if he wanted to.

Bran pulls back, fingers still tightly gripping Jojen's tunic. "Did you see this?"

"Only in the parts I imagined," Jojen whispered. "Only in the things I wanted and wished to dream."

The other boy leans in again, eager, discovering everything for the first time and making up for a lack of finesse with open curiosity.

"We can't," Jojen mumbles, against Bran's lips.

"Does it change things?" Bran asks.

"I don't know."

That's a lie; it changes everything. Jojen's entire world has been knocked off its axis. He feels guilty and elated and terrified and hopeful all at the same time, and he thinks Bran can probably taste all of that on his own lips when he meets them, a hesitant lick of his tongue scraping the corner of Jojen's mouth.

They will wake the others. They have to _stop_ , because Bran is not a man-grown yet, and they will become so dizzy with it that they will lose sight of their goal. It's the worst feeling imaginable to have to pull back and away, to keep his hands set against Bran's shoulders.

"What do we do now?" Bran asks.

"We keep going," Jojen tells him, and that much, at least, he knows is true.


End file.
